Faculty of Arts

ENGLISH 302

Middle English Popular Literature

Description

Studies popular works in several genres: lyric, dramatic and narrative. Lyrics are often amorous, sometimes political, frequently devotional; narrative includes comic tale, fable, romance and outlaw tale; drama comprises especially the major theatrical traditions of morality and scriptural cycle plays. Some texts are canonical, like Chaucer’s fabliaux, but all works studied depend for their full effect on our appreciating their socially embedded character. Popular literature in this course then, covers texts written for religious purposes as well as secular, is aimed at a mass audience, rather than a social élite and often takes pleasure as a goal.